A cloud forest in Ecuador and a backyard feeder in Ohio can host hummingbirds from the very same family tree, yet the birds you'd find in each place might share almost nothing beyond ancestry and an appetite for nectar. Trochilidae, the hummingbird family, currently numbers about 363 recognized species worldwide, according to AviList, the unified global checklist that ornithologists introduced in 2025. Scientists sort that diversity into nine major groups, usually called clades, each carrying a different body plan, range, and evolutionary story.
Knowing those nine groups is really the answer to what types of hummingbirds exist. The family isn't a loose collection of similar small birds. It's a structured tree, and where a species sits on that tree explains a great deal about how it looks, where it lives, and how it makes a living from flowers.
Nine Branches on One Family Tree
In 2014, biologist Jimmy McGuire and several colleagues published a hummingbird phylogeny in the journal Current Biology, built from genetic data across 284 species. Their tree resolved the family into nine principal clades: Topazes, Hermits, Mangoes, Brilliants, Coquettes, Patagona, Mountain Gems, Bees, and Emeralds.
The Topazes clade includes the topazes, in the genus Topaza, and the jacobins, in Florisuga. In McGuire and colleagues' 2014 tree, Topazes are sister to the Hermits, placing both groups among the deepest branches of the living hummingbird family. Hermits include many species known for trap-lining: rather than guarding one patch of flowers, they patrol a regular circuit of blooms scattered through the forest. Mangoes occur across tropical South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, generally mid-sized birds with bills that curve just slightly.
From there the tree keeps branching. Coquettes and Brilliants are especially diverse in the Andes, though both groups contain far more ecological and geographic variety than their showiest members suggest, including coquettes in the genus Lophornis known for ornate crests and neck fans. Mountain gems are centered largely in the montane regions of Mexico and Central America. Emeralds, one of the biggest and most widespread groups, occur across a broad range of habitats in the Americas.
Two clades sit at opposite extremes. Patagona is a clade of a single genus, the giant hummingbirds, an entire branch built around one lineage that scaled up the family's usual proportions. The bees, formally the tribe Mellisugini, hold the smallest species in the family, the bee hummingbird among them, along with many of the hummingbirds North Americans know best: ruby-throated, black-chinned, Anna's, Costa's, rufous, and calliope.
How Different Can Hummingbird Species Really Be
Beyond size, hummingbird species diverge in bill shape, tail form, habitat, and range. The sword-billed hummingbird of the Andes carries a bill longer than the rest of its body, not counting the tail, an adaptation for reaching deep into long, tubular flowers few other birds can pollinate. Other species carry short, almost stubby bills suited to flowers with shallow nectar. Tails range from simple and short to deeply forked, and in a handful of species trail long, elegant streamers used mainly in display.
Behavior varies just as much. Many hermits keep moving along a flower circuit instead of defending territory, while some bee hummingbirds aggressively guard a single productive patch and chase off any rival that gets too close. Neither strategy is more advanced than the other. Both are different answers to the same demanding question: how to fuel one of the highest metabolisms in the animal kingdom on a diet of flower nectar.
Familiar Hummingbirds in American Backyards
Most people in the United States and Canada encounter only a sliver of this diversity, and nearly all of it comes from the bee clade. More than a dozen species regularly spend the summer in the United States, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Canada hosts five species that occur there regularly.
The ruby-throated hummingbird is eastern North America's only breeding hummingbird, which makes identification refreshingly simple east of the Great Plains. Anna's hummingbird is common along the Pacific coast and, in recent decades, has pushed farther north and inland than it once ranged. Black-chinned hummingbirds cover much of the West, Costa's hummingbird is strongly tied to the desert Southwest, and the calliope, smallest bird to nest anywhere in the United States or Canada, favors mountain meadows. Rufous hummingbirds move through an unusually broad swath of the West on one of the longer migrations, relative to body size, of any bird in the family, though the details of that journey belong to a story of their own.
Separating these species by plumage and field marks in the yard is its own skill, one that rewards a good pair of binoculars more than a paragraph of description ever could.
The Smallest and the Largest
At one extreme sits the bee hummingbird, found only on Cuba and its offshore Isla de la Juventud. It is the smallest bird species on Earth, not just the smallest hummingbird. Males measure around 5.5 centimeters and typically weigh under 2 grams, close to the heft of a small coin. Females run a little larger.
At the other extreme are the giant hummingbirds of the high Andes, genus Patagona, roughly four times the bee hummingbird's length at about 23 centimeters, with the heaviest individuals in the historical species complex weighing as much as 31 grams. For decades, ornithologists treated the giant hummingbird as one species. A 2024 genomic and bioacoustic study led by Jessie Williamson found something different: two deeply divergent lineages, one a high-elevation resident and the other an extreme elevational migrant, breeding near sea level in Chile and spending the nonbreeding season in the high Andes of Peru, a round trip of as much as 8,335 kilometers, among the longest migrations relative to body size recorded in any hummingbird.
The study's authors proposed the name Patagona chaski for the resident lineage, though later taxonomic review determined that an older name, Patagona peruviana, described in 1893, took priority. The South American Classification Committee voted unanimously in September 2025 to accept the split, recognizing the resident Patagona peruviana and the migratory Patagona gigas as separate species. AviList's global checklist, as of its most recent v2025b update, still lists that split as a proposal under consideration for a future revision, so the worldwide species count may rise once it clears that review.
Where Hummingbird Diversity Concentrates
Diversity is not spread evenly across the hemisphere. Colombia holds more recorded hummingbird species than any other country, well over 160, with Ecuador and Peru close behind. The northern Andes, where elevation can shift by thousands of feet across a short hike, pack an unusual range of climates and flowering plants into a small area, and that combination has produced more hummingbird species than anywhere else on the planet. Central America and the Caribbean each add their own share, including species found nowhere else, the bee hummingbird among them.
Researchers have proposed several explanations for why the Andes produced so many species in the first place. McGuire and colleagues found that different clades diversified at noticeably different rates, and that repeated colonization of new regions, including the opportunities created once Central and South America connected across the Isthmus of Panama, played a role for some lineages. The full picture likely involves more than one mechanism working together, and research on the subject is still developing.
Why the Count Keeps Changing
The giant hummingbird split is a useful reminder that a species count is never quite finished. Genetic and acoustic tools now reveal differences between populations that, to the eye, look nearly identical. The calliope hummingbird has its own small chapter in that ongoing revision: it once sat in its own genus, Stellula, until phylogenetic evidence showed it belonged with the rufous and Allen's hummingbirds, and taxonomists moved it into Selasphorus in 2012.
None of this instability reflects carelessness on the part of ornithologists. It reflects a field that keeps testing its own conclusions as better evidence becomes available, which is exactly how a trustworthy species count should behave.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many species of hummingbirds are there?
AviList's current global checklist recognizes about 363 species, a number that can shift slightly as research splits or combines populations.
What are the main groups of hummingbirds?
Scientists recognize nine major clades: Topazes, Hermits, Mangoes, Brilliants, Coquettes, Patagona, Mountain Gems, Bees, and Emeralds.
What is the smallest hummingbird?
The bee hummingbird of Cuba, the smallest bird species on Earth, with males typically weighing under 2 grams.
What is the largest hummingbird?
The giant hummingbird of the Andes, genus Patagona, at around 23 centimeters and up to 31 grams in the heaviest individuals.
One Family, Countless Forms
Nine clades, 363 species, and a range stretching from Alaska to the southern tip of South America: that's the scale behind the question of what types of hummingbirds exist. The more interesting answer isn't the number itself but what it represents, a family that has found dozens of different ways to solve the same problem, staying aloft and fed on nectar and insects, in nearly every climate the Americas have to offer.